canon law, Latin jus canonicum,
body of laws made within certain Christian churches (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, independent churches of Eastern Christianity, and the Anglican Communion) by lawful ecclesiastical authority for the government of both the whole church and parts thereof and of the behaviour and actions of individuals. In a wider sense the term includes precepts of divine law, natural or positive, incorporated in the canonical collections and codes.

Although canon law is historically continuous from the early church to the present, it has, as a result of doctrinal and ecclesiastical schisms, developed differing, though often similar, patterns of codification and norms in the various churches that have incorporated it into their ecclesiastical frameworks. The canon law of the Eastern and Western churches was much the same in form until these two groups of churches separated in the Schism of 1054. In Eastern Christianity, however, because of doctrinal and nationalistic disputes during the 5th to 7th centuries, several church groups (especially non-Greek) separated themselves from the nominal head of Eastern Christianity, the patriarch of Constantinople, and developed their own bodies of canon law, often reflecting nationalistic concerns.

Canon law in the Western churches after 1054 developed without interruption until the Reformation of the 16th century. Though other churches of the Reformation rejected the canon law of the Roman Catholic church, the Church of England retained the concept of canon law and developed its own type, which has acceptance in the churches of the Anglican Communion.

Canon law has had a long history of development throughout the Christian era. Not a static body of laws, it reflects social, political, economic, cultural, and ecclesiastical changes that have taken place in the past two millennia. During periods of social and cultural upheaval the church has not remained unaffected by its environment. Thus, canon law may be expected to be involved in the far-reaching changes that have come to be anticipated in the modern world.

Nature and significance

A church is defined as a community founded in a unity of faith, a sacramental fellowship of all members with Christ as Lord, and a unity of government. Many scholars assert that a church cannot exist without authority—i.e., binding rules and organizational structures—and that religion and law are mutually inclusive. Thus the calling of a church leader to office is regarded as important in the organizational structure and, like every other fundamental vocation in the churches that accept the validity of canon law, it is also viewed as sacramental and linked to the priesthood—which, in turn, involves a calling to leadership in liturgy and preaching. According to Roman Catholic belief, the mission of the college of Apostles (presided over by Peter in the 1st century ad) is continued in the college of bishops, presided over by the pope. Other churches may accept this view, without at the same time accepting the authority of the pope. The validity of canon law thus rests on an acceptance of this sacramental view and of the transmitted mission of the Apostles through the bishops.

Historical and cultural importance of canon law

Canon law has functioned in different historical periods in the organization of the church’s liturgy, preaching, works of charity, and other activities through which Christianity was established and spread in the Mediterranean area and beyond. Canon law, moreover, had an essential role in the transmission of Greek and Roman jurisprudence and in the reception of Justinian law (Roman law as codified under the sponsorship of the Byzantine emperor Justinian in the 6th century) in Europe during the Middle Ages. Thus it is that the history of the Middle Ages, to the extent that they were dominated by ecclesiastical concerns, cannot be written without knowledge of the ecclesiastical institutions that were governed according to canon law. Medieval canon law also had a lasting influence on the law of the Protestant churches. Numerous institutions and concepts of canon law have influenced the secular law and jurisprudence in lands influenced by Protestantism: e.g., marriage law, the law of obligations, the doctrine of modes of property acquisition, possession, wills, legal persons, the law of criminal procedure, and the law concerning proof or evidence. International law owes its very origin to canonists and theologians, and the modern idea of the state goes back to the ideas developed by medieval canonists regarding the constitution of the church. The history of the legal principles of the relation of sacerdotium to imperium—i.e., of ecclesiastical to secular authority or of church to state—is a central factor in European history.

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